No cash for D.A.R.E. program

Some parents are disappointed that the Pickerington school district no longer will offer the D.A.R.E. program, a casualty of budget-cutting.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program has been taught for at least 20 years in Pickerington. About 900 fifth-graders took it this school year.

Some parents are disappointed that the Pickerington school district no longer will offer the D.A.R.E. program, a casualty of budget-cutting.

The Drug Abuse Resistance Education program has been taught for at least 20 years in Pickerington. About 900 fifth-graders took it this school year.

D.A.R.E. has been widely taught in Ohio classrooms since the late 1980s by police departments or sheriff's offices. But tight budgets and shifting priorities have eliminated or changed the programs.

At least a third of Ohio's 88 county sheriffs have dropped the service in recent years in coping with budget cuts, said Bob Cornwell, director of the Buckeye State Sheriffs' Association.

Sheriffs in Fairfield, Knox and Morrow counties eliminated the program to keep deputies on road patrol.

"I know that's true all over the state," said Van Keating of the Ohio School Boards Association. "The D.A.R.E. program, unfortunately, seems to be on the chopping block when it comes to budgets."

It has been a national trend, too, in recent years, said Richard Caster, former executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers.

As budgets tighten and officials try to get more bang for their buck, school districts and police agencies alike are searching for more-comprehensive approaches to problems rather than those that are narrowly focused, such as anti-drug education, he said.

The Pickerington Board of Education eliminated the program while cutting $13million from the annual budget of about $100 million. The D.A.R.E. elimination will save the district $26,323, the amount it was paying toward the salary of the police officer who taught the course, Treasurer Dan Griscom said. The police department paid the rest of the officer's salary with a grant.

The cuts take effect next school year and include eliminating the jobs of about 100 teachers, classroom aides, nurses, secretaries and administrators. Courses also are being wiped out, including the physical-education classes in which D.A.R.E. has been taught.

In its place, the city's police and parks and recreation departments plan to offer a modified course over the summer, based on the D.A.R.E. curriculum, said Pickerington Police Cmdr. Matt Delp. A course for parents also is planned.

"It seems insane. It seems like they're going to take everything away at some point," said parent Todd Miller, whose three older children took the D.A.R.E. course. Another son will enter fifth grade next school year without the opportunity to take it.

The Pickerington police and parks and recreation summer course will be an adequate replacement, but not as good as having the school district offer it, Miller said.

"In school, the kids are captured," he said. "Everyone has busy schedules, and a lot of kids that need to hear the message probably won't."

The police department received nearly $28,000 this year from a grant awarded by the state attorney general to run D.A.R.E. in the school district, most of it to offset the salary of the officer who taught the program, Delp said. The police department plans to apply for the same grant to help it run the summer drug-education program.

The district, meanwhile, plans to integrate drug education into health and possibly other classes, board President Lisa Reade said.

"We absolutely believe in drug education in our schools," she said. "It's just going to be delivered in a different manner."